


SeekTale - An Undertale AU

by mysconesaredelicious, xXDarkShivaXx



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-03 16:59:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8721619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysconesaredelicious/pseuds/mysconesaredelicious, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xXDarkShivaXx/pseuds/xXDarkShivaXx
Summary: When one of Dr. Gaster's 'experiments' is interrupted by Frisk, a corrupted soul - Chara - is released. Chara just wants to play Hide and Seek... but whoever is 'it' will die once she finds a new person to be 'it!' Frisk and Sans have to figure out how to exorcise the demon before too many of them die too many times.





	1. Prologue

_Ding dong._

The door to the laboratory slid open. The lab assistant, Alphys, stood there looking out, one hand subconsciously adjusting her glasses. Sans waved a hand as he stepped inside, a neutral grin on his face.

“heya, alphys.”  
“O-oh, Sans! Hello. I didn’t know you were coming today. A-are you looking for Dr. Gaster?”  
“yup. i’ve got a few tools to return. is he in?”  
“Is he _in?_ W-well, of course! I-I haven’t seen him come out of the basement in almost a week… I’m a-actually starting to worry about h-him a little…”  
“pfft. only a week? heh, you don’t know him very well yet. when he was finishing up the core blueprints, he didn’t come out for almost a month. i’m sure he’s fine.”  
“R-really? Th-that doesn’t sound very h-healthy, though…”  
“what do you expect? a genius like him? he can’t tear away his focus so easily. but i’ll go make sure he’s eating and stuff, so don’t worry.”  
“W-well, okay. I’ve got to finish this r-robot body, anyway…”  
“hey, it’s looking good so far. that little ghost will love it. later, alligator.”  
Sans winked and gave her finger guns before heading to the elevator.

The basement was only dimly lit, as usual. Sans hummed quietly as he walked through the front hallway, ignoring the electronic reminders that turned on at regular intervals along the left wall. Soon enough, he found the main room and poked his head in. As expected, Gaster was buried in papers and a book, absently scratching the side of his skull as he wrote.  
“knock knock, doc.”

The royal scientist didn’t even look up. Rolling his eyes, Sans came further into the room. He fished out a small handful of tools from his hoodie’s pocket, then gently knocked the handle of a screwdriver on Gaster’s head.  
“i _said_ knock knock, doc.”  
“Huh?”  
The older skeleton looked up, moving his hand to scratch where he’d been bonked instead. Non-existent eyebrows furrowed.

“Oh, Sans. Where did you come from?”  
“well, i presume i came from my parents, just like anyone else.”  
“Har har. When did you get here, I mean?”  
“just now.”

He offered a wider grin, holding out the tools.

“i came to return these. that machine i was working on is a dud for now. i think i need to start from scratch. remake the blueprints.”  
“Oh. Yes, of course. You know, now that you boys are on your own, don’t you think you should get your own tools? You’re going to come bother me about getting these back in a few weeks.”  
“yeah, but why bother, when you can never say no to your favorite foster sons?”  
“Yes, yes…”  
“so, uh, what’cha working on so hard?”

Gaster looked back down at his notes, frowning.

“What else? The human SOULs. We have six now, but who knows when the seventh child will fall? If I could repair Chara’s…”  
“yeah, what else indeed?”

He bent over the notes, sticking his hands back in his pockets. After scanning them briefly, his gaze turned to the book. His grin faded a little.

“uhh, doc? this is a book of human legends.”  
“Yes, Sans, I am aware. There are some fascinating rituals the humans have come up with to contact their dead…”  
“these aren’t rituals, though. they’re legends. they’re not real.”  
“We monsters are legends ourselves, at least to the humans. Just because most people think it is fake doesn’t mean it truly is. You know that.”  
“that may apply to some things, but…”  
“Look, this is promising. Summoning a corrupted spirit to a doll for the purposes of playing a game with it. There’s nothing in the bare ritual about really communicating, but that could come later. Actually summoning a deceased SOUL at all would be a big step.”  
  
Sans straightened up, taking the book and reading the intro, his expression one of confusion despite his permasmile.  
“hide and seek with only one player. a japanese urban legend involving a humanoid doll which serves as a vessel for a ghost or other spirit. this is highly dangerous as if a second person interrupts, the spirit could possess them in place of the doll. also, losing the game could be deadly if you don’t release the spirit in time… gaster, did alphys give this to you? you can’t believe _any_ of her weird ‘japanese’ stuff. her other books have giant-ass robots and magical girls that transform and get powers from cats.”  
“I am aware that her ‘anime’ is fake. This isn’t that.”  
“seriously? i’m telling you, this is a waste of time.”  
“I don’t think it is. And seeing as you have quit being my lab assistant, I no longer care for your input.”  
“ouch, doc. no need to be so rude. fine, do what you want.”  
He tossed the book back and turned away. Gaster sighed.  
“I’m sorry, that _was_ rude. Of course I value your input. But I really think I’m onto something here. I don’t intend on doing this actual ritual unless I can’t find a more secure way to trap the summoned SOUL.”

“tch.”  
The shorter skeleton looked back, his expression smoothing into a neutral one.

“apology accepted, i guess. i still think it’s a waste of time, but hey, i could be wrong. by the way, alphys is worried you might be dying down here. you’re at least eating regularly, right?”  
“Yes, yes, tell her not to worry. I had an energy bar at noon.”  
Sans looked over at the clock and noted that it was now eight at night.  
“…close enough. welp, good luck, doc. i’m heading home.”  
“Yes, yes… Hmm… What if I…”  
Sans left him muttering to himself, heading back up to assure Alphys that Gaster _probably_ wouldn’t wither away into nothingness over this.

\- - - - - - - -

“…Well, th-that was certainly something.”  
As Alphys giggled nervously, Frisk stared at the hole in the laboratory’s wall. She still couldn’t believe that dramatic hunk of metal had just burst through like that. How rude. Wouldn’t that cost a lot of money in repairs? She looked around the room now that it was lit up, putting a hand on her hip.  
“Soooo… you live here?”  
“H-huh?”

Still blushing from the final question, Alphys looked over at her again. “O-oh! W-well, yes, for now. I’m just an assistant here, b-but Dr. Gaster lets me stay.”  
“Really? Where’s this Dr. Gaster, then?”  
“I-in the basement! Working on some big project, I think. O-only I haven’t seen him in like… over two weeks now. Sans said that’s normal for him, b-but…”  
“Huh. Well, whatever. Look, I’ve got to get going.”  
“R-right, right, of course. Oh, wait! Let me give you my phone number.”  
Alphys hurried over and dug in her pocket for her phone. But upon seeing the time, she winced.  
“O-Oh, it’s getting late… So, um, Frisk, maybe you s-should… stay the night? You don’t w-want to walk around in Hotland a-all exhausted. You m-might trip and, well…”  
The mental image of falling in lava made Frisk shudder.  
“Good idea. You really don’t mind?”  
“O-of course not! H-here, you can use Gaster’s bed upstairs. He hasn’t used it in over two weeks and the sheets are f-fresh and all, so it’s no big deal, y-yeah?”  
“What if he comes out tonight, though?”  
“Honestly, b-by this point I’m starting to w-wonder if he’s ever g-gonna come out… a-ah, but don’t worry! He has a b-bed down there too. Um, s-several, actually.”  
“So why don’t I just use one of those?”  
“W-well, I don’t think he wants to be d-disturbed… S-so you should just i-ignore the basement altogether, okay?”  
  
Frisk looked over to the elevator, musing. A mysterious scientist who had been holed up in a basement for over two weeks… An idea came to her. She looked back at Alphys and smiled innocently, pulling her hands behind her back. She crossed two fingers.  
“Well, okay! No worries, Alphys, I won’t go down there. Promise. I don’t want to get you in trouble, anyway. So can you show me the bed, then?”

\- - - - - - - -

It was 4:30 in the morning when Frisk awoke. She had deliberately gone to sleep much earlier than she was used to, flopping into the bed as soon as Alphys had directed her to it. After getting up and tiptoeing downstairs, she discovered with pleasure that Alphys wasn’t up yet. Success! From the meager light peeking through the blinds of the windows, Frisk found her way to the elevator and pressed the button to call it. The doors opened and she stepped inside quickly to jab the basement button, hoping the sound of the elevator wouldn’t awaken Alphys. Luckily, it didn’t. The doors closed with no calls of protest from outside, and down she went. She giggled to herself as it went down, in a childish gesture unbefitting of her 18-year-old self. Once the doors opened, she stepped into a long hallway.  
  
As Frisk wandered down the hallway, small monitors on the left wall lit up. Apparently, they were motion-controlled. Curious, she went up to one. It appeared to be some kind of message, or perhaps notes, except there were no words. Just strange symbols she had never seen before.  
“Huh, that’s weird… It’s like a completely different language or something…” she mused aloud. “Or maybe this is Dr. Gaster’s secret code for himself… I can ask him about it when I see him.”  
So she kept walking. Finally, she reached a room. A small one, with a door across from her and two more hallways, plus a vending machine.  
“This is kinda out of place in a lab… Hey, what’s these? Popato chisps? Pfft, that’s a dumb name. I’ll get some.”  
As she fished around for enough gold, the door opened. A skeleton stepped out, one nearly as tall as Papyrus, holding a glass of water. As he caught sight of her, his eyes widened.  
“What the… a human? How did…? Oh no.”  
“Oh, hey! You must be Dr. Gaster, right?”  
Frisk smiled and extended a hand. But to her surprise, he smacked the hand away and began pushing her back to the elevator.

“Get out of here, you’re interrupting something important!”  
“Hey, whoa, don’t push me! Let go!”  
“Get out get out get out!”  
  
They both froze at a giggle from behind them. Gaster’s eye sockets went blank. Frisk had come to recognize that as a signal of distress, from watching Sans’s eye sockets do the same occasionally. Slowly, he turned, and she followed his gaze. There was a doll now in the doorway from the hall on the right, one that hadn’t been there before. Next to it was a knife.  
“What… the fuck…” Frisk mumbled.  
“Human, run. Run now!”  
“What the _fuck-_ ”  
“RUN!”  
“Too laaaaaate!”

As they watched, a translucent figure of a child rose from the doll. The spirit grinned widely, eyes red, and lunged at Frisk. Frisk screamed and turned to run, but she was indeed too late. Her vision went black as the spirit slammed into her. Her consciousness faded.

Chara straightened up in the human’s body, her grin and red eyes twisting the appearance of a once sweet girl into that of a demon. Gaster dropped the glass of salt water, trembling, and took a step back.  
“Ch-Chara, please… I-I summoned you to try and communicate. I know you’re corrupted at the moment, but try to lis-”  
“Hah! Shut up! Wow, I can’t believe you were such an idiot! Leaving the elevator unlocked for someone to come interrupt. It was just what I needed!”  
She went over to the knife and picked it up, and Gaster took another step back.  
“Chara, please… don’t…”  
“Stop begging, it’s pathetic. You’re not worth my time. You’re not even running away! Heh. I won’t even bother killing you if you won’t play with me. So just stay down here while I find someone else to play with.”  
She shoved him back into the main generator room, shut the door, and stabbed the controls, destroying them. As he pounded on the door frantically, she turned and headed for the elevator.  
“Time to find someone new. Ahh, I can feel this body’s memories! So I’m Frisk now, and there’s an Alphys upstairs… Well, then, Alphys… _let’s play hide and seek_!”

\- - - - - - - -

A/N: Let’s play hide and seek~! AU created by xXDarkShivaXx and written story created by me!

Welcome to Seektale! This AU was inspired by the Vocaloid song Hide and Seek (here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-YNNJIe2Vk) and the ritualpasta One Man Hide and Seek. This AU is going to have some lovely character death, a lot of angst and fear, and also some later Frans~ We’re not sure yet how long this story will be, but we plan to update regularly for it! There will be character reference sheets for the color schemes and how each monster changes when they are ‘it.’ In general, there is a purple, black, and yellow theme going on here, as they make great demon colors.

Gaster is alive in this AU! That’s right, he never fell into the core, and is still the royal scientist. This has changed a few things in the world overall. So here is a lowdown of the deviations from the original story:

\- Since he is still the royal scientist, Alphys is just an assistant. This means that she and Undyne have not met face to face. She still has a huge crush on Undyne, but as of yet Undyne doesn’t even know she exists.

\- Sans and Papyrus consider Gaster their foster father, but in a casual sense. They mostly raised each other, before Gaster found them. So they’re grateful to him for taking them in, and Gaster will dote on them sometimes, but seeing as they were both already almost adults, and now are adults, there is some emotional distance. Sans and Gaster have a working professional relationship, as Sans used to be an assistant there. This is why Sans was mildly hurt by Gaster’s dismissal of his opinion, but didn’t take it too seriously and easily forgave him.

\- With somewhat of a father figure, Sans never fell quite as deep into depression as he did in the original game. He still has some mild depression and nihilism he hides with humor, he wouldn’t be Sans without them, but it’s not as bad since he has a healthy support system. This means his HP (or HOPE) is actually at 100, not 1. This is still fairly low for monsters of his caliber, considering Papyrus is at his usual 680, Undyne is at her usual 1,500, etc, but he is by no means a 1-hit KO.

\- Yes, Frisk is 18, and yes, she is a girl in the story. However, you are free to headcanon her as nonbinary or a boy or trans or whatever you’d like! We’re not going to get on your case about it, so don’t get on our case about our gender choice

.- The core does still exist, but Gaster became distracted with more human SOUL work and never did the specific experiment that caused him to fall into his creation and disappear.

\- They both created Flowey in much the same way that Alphys did alone.

\- There are no amalgamates. Gaster moved on to other theories once injecting the flower didn’t work.

The rest of the world itself is pretty much the same! Sans and Pap still have a mysterious past and just show up in Snowdin one day (when they decided they wanted to move out of Gaster’s place), Alphys is still an anime nerd, Undyne is still the leader of the royal guard, there are still 6 SOULs already in captivity, Alphys still built a body for Mettaton, etc.That’s all the information we can provide for now! Anything more would be explained in later chapters~ So let us know what you think of this little AU so far!

Undertale and characters © Toby Fox

Seektale © xXDarkShivaXx and myself!

Reference photos!  
http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Frisk-648912576  
http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Sans-648913355  
http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Papyrus-648914023  
http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Alphys-648974723  
http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Gaster-648913913  
http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Grillby-649339780


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game begins properly.

The sound of his cell phone ringing woke Sans. He lifted his head with a quiet groan, blinking open his eyes. Where had he fallen asleep...? A quick look around made it obvious. He was in his basement, half-finished blueprints all around him, along with pens and a calculator and miscellaneous machine parts. He found his phone among some of the mess and noted the time before answering with a yawn.  
“alphys, it’s almost five in the morning, what are you-”  
“Sans. H-help. P-please help me.”  
The frantic whispering on the other end piqued his interest. He shook himself more awake, standing up, and straightened his hoodie.  
“what’s going on? what’s wrong?”  
“Th-th-the h-human... Th-there’s... there’s s-s-something wrong with the h-human...”  
“what? what do you mean, something wrong with her? what happened? why are you whispering?”  
“S-s-she’s trying to k-kill me, Sans! I-I-I’m hiding in m-my closet, p-please come h-help...”  
“wh... kill you? that doesn’t... but...”  
That made no sense _._ After everything he had learned about Frisk from hanging out a few times, from snooping her ‘date’ with Papyrus, from knowing she even refused to fight Undyne... Frisk was a sweet girl, and he was sort of fond of her. He was snapped out of his thoughts as he heard a muffled whimper.  
“Sans! S-Sans please, she’s g-getting closer!”  
“shit. ok. calm down, i’m coming over there.”  
“H-hurry!”  
“i will.”

  
He hung up, then slipped his phone in his pocket and headed for the door. Once he opened it, he stepped not outside into the snow, but directly into the lab via the front door. The lights were off, but he found the light switch and flicked them on quickly. Frisk was just closing the door to Alphys’s bedroom, and she was holding a knife. His permasmile as close to a frown as it could get, he hurried up the stairs and opened the door again. By the time he got there, panting slightly (he didn’t do running), the closet door was open. Frisk was lifting the knife, while Alphys cowered in her closet.  
“frisk, wait!”  
The human girl paused, then turned to look at him. Suddenly, a shiver went down his spine and he took an automatic step back. It looked just like Frisk, but there was a wide, creepy grin stretched across her face, and her eyes were a burning red, the whites replaced with black. His own eye sockets went black in response.  
“you’re not frisk...”  
“Heeheehee! You’re right, skeleboy! I’m not!”  
The demon turned to face him, holding up the knife. She tilted her head.  
“I wonder if you can figure out who I am?”

Sans stared at her, eyes still blank as he tried to process this. It didn’t take him very long to figure it out. Undyne had arrived at their house the evening before, as apparently her house had burned down while she was befriending Frisk. Then Frisk had come here. The only thing that could’ve happened was...  
“gaster’s experiment. that doll ritual... you’re chara.”  
“Ohhh, very good! I didn’t even have to give you a hint! I can see from Frisk’s memories that she admires you for being smart, but you’re cleverer than I thought.”  
Sans’s distressed expression slowly shifted. His left eye returned, burning blue, and his grin became malevolent.  
“gaster told me he wasn’t going to do it unless he couldn’t find any good alternatives... i guess he really couldn’t. and frisk, being a bit too nosy as usual, must’ve gone downstairs and interrupted. so... did you kill him?”  
“That expression! You think you can scare me, skeleboy? Hah! No, I didn’t kill him. He didn’t run and hide. But Alphys did, and I found her. Do you know what that means?”  
“if you want to kill her, you’re gonna have to go through me, first.”  
“That’s not how the game works, silly! I found her, so she’s _it._ Haven’t you ever played hide and seek?”  
“not with a demon, i’m afraid. if you don’t plan on killing her, what’s with the knife?”  
“Oh, that’s easy! Frisk _was_ it, but, well, now she’s not!”

  
She lifted the knife again, but it didn’t point towards Alphys, or Sans. It pointed at her own chest. Sans’s expression faded into horror again.  
“wh-what are you doing? chara, don’t you dare-”  
“Or what, you’ll _fight_ me? That would hurt your friend too!”  
He didn’t respond. He just lunged, left hand stretching out. The SOUL on Frisk’s chest turned blue and she slammed down flat on the floor. Sans pinned her legs with his own and made a grab for the knife, but he was too late. With a high-pitched giggle, Chara shoved the knife down through her own chest. The giggle turned into a choking sound and blood spattered the ground and Sans’s clothes. Some even landed on his cheeks, to start dripping down slowly. He froze. Frisk’s eyes fluttered, and suddenly they returned to their normal blue. She was conscious again.  
“S-Sans... I-I messed up...”  
“frisk... oh god...”  
“Sans... I...”  
She trailed off, blood still pouring from her chest. The hand holding the knife went limp, with the knife still deep in her chest. Her eyes closed.

Then Chara rose from her body. Sans got a quick glimpse of her, grinning, her form slightly distorted, before she leapt into Alphys. Alphys screamed as the spirit came towards her, and slumped over for a moment. As Sans watched, she slowly straightened. Her eyes became black and red too. Her teeth grew into fangs. She grinned.  
“Sans, time for you to go hide~”  
He couldn’t move, still frozen with shock. Underneath him, Frisk’s soul broke. Everything faded into black.

\- - - - - - - -

Suddenly, he was slumped over on his desk again, just as he had been before the phone rang. He scrambled to his feet and looked around, before grabbing a mirror from one of the drawers. His hands shook as he lifted it to his face and examined himself. No blood. His cheekbones were perfectly clean. The only evidence of Frisk’s death was the fact that his eye sockets were still blank from distress. He sighed, putting a hand to his cheek.

“idiot... of course it goes away in a reload,” he mumbled to himself, setting the mirror down. Then he dug out his phone and checked the time. 4:30 on the dot. That must’ve been the moment frisk awoke to sneak downstairs. No doubt the girl would be terrified right now. But there wouldn’t be any more danger, right? If it had never happened in the first place, and she didn’t do it again... Nonetheless, he had a horrible feeling that told him things weren’t that simple. Not this reload.

“...shit.”  
He put his phone away and once again teleported to the lab. This time, both bedroom doors hung open. As he walked slowly to the stairs, he heard Frisk scream. That was enough to set him off at a run again, taking the steps two at a time and skidding to a halt in front of Gaster’s room, where the scream had come from.

Frisk was cowering in the bed, as Alphys approached her. _deja vu,_ he thought as he reached out a hand.  
“frisk...!”  
“Sans, help! She’s still here!”  
Alphys turned around, and once again Sans felt a small thrill of fear. No, it wasn’t Alphys, not this time. That was definitely Chara, except she wasn’t smiling. Not now. Her eyes gleamed as she glared at him.  
“Stay out of this, comedian.” Chara’s anger just sounded wrong in Alphys’s voice, usually riddled with stutters. “She _cheated._ She’s not _it_ anymore, she’s supposed to be dead! I’ll just have to kill her again, and make sure she stays dead.”  
Sans narrowed his eyes. His left one turned blue and he lifted the matching hand. With a ding, Frisk’s SOUL turned blue. He then pulled his hand back in and Frisk was yanked from the bed, towards him. He caught her, then pushed her behind him.  
“yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”  
“Oh? You think you can stop me? Hahaha! Are you stupid? Fighting me means hurting Alphys! And you don’t want that, now do you?”  
“heh. no. i’m not really a fighter.” He looked back briefly. “frisk, get out of here, ok? let me handle this.”  
“But Sans, how are you going to stop her?”  
“i’ll think of something. if gaster’s still alive, he might have an idea.”  
“But what if you get hurt?”  
“don’t worry about me, frisk, i know what i’m doing. ...kinda.”  
“But-”  
“just go!”

She hesitated another moment, then scampered off, down the stairs and out the door. Sans looked back at ‘Alphys,’ who hadn’t moved. He stuck his hands in his pockets, the magic in his eye fading.  
“welp. just you and me now, kiddo. and i don’t intend on ‘playing’ with you.”  
“Oh? Well... That’s just too bad. You and Frisk are good friends, huh? I saw it, in her memories. She is _really_ fond of you! And you’re pretty fond of her too. I can see you in Alphys’s memories right now... You’re a lazybones, huh? You’d rather let everyone else deal with any problems! So if you came all this way, without being called, to protect her...”  
“i made a promise to a friend to protect that human, so i will.”  
“Heehee!” That _really_ didn’t sound right in Alphys’s voice. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to break that promise. Because how can you protect her from _yourself?_ ”  
Sans’s non-existent eyebrows furrowed together again.  
“...”  
“Thaaat’s right. All I have to do is make you _it!_ Then she’ll watch you die before I take her and kill her again! Now, if you’re not going to go hide, I’ll just have to make you _it_ right here and now.”  
“heh... you wanna play so badly, demon kid? fine. come and get me. if you can.”  
He stepped backwards out of the bedroom. straight into the true lab via the elevator doors.

Sans then turned and hurried for the generator room, which was also Gaster’s main work room. Upon reaching it, he saw the awful state of the door controls and felt a twinge of panic.  
“damn it... gaster! doc, can you hear me?”  
He pounded on the door. After a moment, there was a faint response.  
“...ans... th... r... t op...”  
“what’d you say? the door’s too thick, i can’t understand you!”  
“...r won... n! ...lp!”  
“damn it!”  
He banged the door again, this time just in frustration.  
“damn it... i can’t shortcut without a doorway. maybe i can... gaster! if you can hear me, stand back from the door!”  
He took a few steps back himself, then lifted his left hand, forming the shape of a gun with just his thumb and pointer finger. A blaster appeared behind him. As he aimed the finger gun at the door, it aimed right there as well. After a few moments to charge, he mimed shooting the gun.  
“bang!”  
The blaster shot, a heavy laser blast of blue magic straight where he had aimed. It made a great thumping sound. But when the blast faded, the door was completely intact. Only some black marks proved he had shot at all. He dropped his hand, causing the blaster to fade away.  
“of course, he _made_ these blasters, he’d keep his doors and walls safe from accidents. ugh, what do i do...? the book! that will at least help!”  
He snapped his fingers. The book of human legends and rituals appeared, and he tucked it into his jacket.  
“gotta find somewhere safe to read this over... can’t go home. hmmm...”  
Before he could honestly think through where to go, he heard the elevator going back up. Chara must’ve heard the blast. He went down the hall to the left, then passed through the first doorway, allowing himself to go to the first secluded, empty place he thought of.

 He arrived at the dump in Waterfall. Looking around, he noted that Mad Dummy was not at his usual spot. He was completely alone. He sighed in relief, sitting down heavily on the board in front of the last waterfall, the one that flowed off into an abyss. He had wondered, once or twice with Alphys, where it might lead to, but any drones they sent down lost contact and never returned. He set his chin in one hand, watching the water flow, and just took a breather for a moment.  
“oh man... i hate running... how does pap do it all the time? geez, i’m out of breath... phew. ok. let’s take a look at this thing.”  
He opened the book and found the ritual, then began to read and think.

\- - - - - - - -

A/N: Here’s chapter 1! The plot solidifies! Just like in the song, once the demon finds the hider, they kill the current person who is ‘it’ and take over the body of the one they found, who is now ‘it.’

Some notes!

* Sans’s “shortcut” power requires two doorways that can be opened by normal means. He can’t just teleport into locked areas or past magical barriers. He’s not a god, after all. This power is the result of experimental magic, and was designed more for convenience and to gain a better understanding of magic, not to break into places.

* No, Sans is not doing the fingergun thing just to be goofy. The blasters weren’t made for him, after all, he can’t just direct them with his mind or something. They aren’t normal attacks. He has to show it where to aim and he has to tell it when to fire. I just... happen to like it this way, I think it’s badass. Don’t judge me.

* Chara saw some of Frisk’s memories while in her body, so she understands that a reload happened, but in her childlike and corrupted state, she really only sees it as cheating. And cheaters get punished, don’t they? One way or another...

* On that note, Chara can access some of the memories of anyone she possesses. Not all of them at once. She can drum up specific ones if she wants (which she probably did to learn more about Sans), or some might just surface naturally.

* In case I didn’t make it clear enough, when someone is possessed by Chara, it is still their own voice. Just Chara’s words. Can you imagine her demonic giggle coming from Alphys’s lips? Spoopy.

* Yes, Sans remembers all reloads and resets. He, Gaster, Flowey, Frisk, and Chara are all of the ones who can remember this in this AU. Anyone else will be oblivious to it. He and Gaster can remember due to old experiments they worked on together, and Chara remembers because as a spirit, she somewhat exists outside of time, especially in her corrupted state.

* Frisk has probably died maybe... once or twice before this? Or if you’d like, you can headcanon she died as many times as YOU died on your first playthrough, back before you memorized everyone’s attack patterns. For me, it was just a few deaths from Undyne, so that’s what I’m going with.

That’s all for this chapter, stay tuned!

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Let’s play hide and seek~! AU created by xXDarkShivaXx and written story created by me!
> 
> Welcome to Seektale! This AU was inspired by the Vocaloid song Hide and Seek (here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-YNNJIe2Vk) and the ritualpasta One Man Hide and Seek. This AU is going to have some lovely character death, a lot of angst and fear, and also some later Frans~ We’re not sure yet how long this story will be, but we plan to update regularly for it! There will be character reference sheets for the color schemes and how each monster changes when they are ‘it.’ In general, there is a purple, black, and yellow theme going on here, as they make great demon colors.
> 
> Gaster is alive in this AU! That’s right, he never fell into the core, and is still the royal scientist. This has changed a few things in the world overall. So here is a lowdown of the deviations from the original story:
> 
> \- Since he is still the royal scientist, Alphys is just an assistant. This means that she and Undyne have not met face to face. She still has a huge crush on Undyne, but as of yet Undyne doesn’t even know she exists.
> 
> \- Sans and Papyrus consider Gaster their foster father, but in a casual sense. They mostly raised each other, before Gaster found them. So they’re grateful to him for taking them in, and Gaster will dote on them sometimes, but seeing as they were both already almost adults, and now are adults, there is some emotional distance. Sans and Gaster have a working professional relationship, as Sans used to be an assistant there. This is why Sans was mildly hurt by Gaster’s dismissal of his opinion, but didn’t take it too seriously and easily forgave him.
> 
> \- With somewhat of a father figure, Sans never fell quite as deep into depression as he did in the original game. He still has some mild depression and nihilism he hides with humor, he wouldn’t be Sans without them, but it’s not as bad since he has a healthy support system. This means his HP (or HOPE) is actually at 100, not 1. This is still fairly low for monsters of his caliber, considering Papyrus is at his usual 680, Undyne is at her usual 1,500, etc, but he is by no means a 1-hit KO.
> 
> \- Yes, Frisk is 18, and yes, she is a girl in the story. However, you are free to headcanon her as nonbinary or a boy or trans or whatever you’d like! We’re not going to get on your case about it, so don’t get on our case about our gender choice
> 
> .- The core does still exist, but Gaster became distracted with more human SOUL work and never did the specific experiment that caused him to fall into his creation and disappear.
> 
> \- They both created Flowey in much the same way that Alphys did alone.
> 
> \- There are no amalgamates. Gaster moved on to other theories once injecting the flower didn’t work.
> 
> The rest of the world itself is pretty much the same! Sans and Pap still have a mysterious past and just show up in Snowdin one day (when they decided they wanted to move out of Gaster’s place), Alphys is still an anime nerd, Undyne is still the leader of the royal guard, there are still 6 SOULs already in captivity, Alphys still built a body for Mettaton, etc.That’s all the information we can provide for now! Anything more would be explained in later chapters~ So let us know what you think of this little AU so far!
> 
> Undertale and characters © Toby Fox
> 
> Seektale © xXDarkShivaXx and myself!
> 
> Reference photos!  
> http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Frisk-648912576  
> http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Sans-648913355  
> http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Papyrus-648914023  
> http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Alphys-648974723  
> http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Gaster-648913913  
> http://sansthetroll.deviantart.com/art/SeekTale-Grillby-649339780


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